Hopes facing for hotel avalance survivors as death toll climbs to 17

Hopes of finding more survivors after a devastating avalanche buried an Italian resort hotel are fading as the death toll rose to 17, with 12 people still unaccounted for.


As Italy's central Abruzzo region and its rescue crews coped with the ongoing emergency, a second tragedy unfolded nearby when an emergency helicopter crashed at an Apennine ski resort, killing six people.
The twin disasters, which followed a series of earthquakes and weeks of heavy snow, have brought the region to its knees.
Thousands of people have been without electricity for over a week and emergency crews have been working around the clock.
The helicopter was ferrying an injured skier off the slopes of the Campo Felice ski area when it slammed into a mountainside buried in thick fog.
Five crew members and the skier were killed.
Emergency workers at the centre where rescue efforts at the avalanche-entombed Hotel Rigopiano are being co-ordinated rushed to the chopper crash site about 100 kilometres away.
Crews on the ground at the scene hugged one another in solidarity.
The death toll from the avalanche, meanwhile, climbed to 17 on Tuesday with the discovery of 10 more bodies, while 12 people remained...